An exploration of Indigenous people’s experiences travelling from Canada to Britain and beyond from the 1770s to 1914.

In the late eighteenth century and throughout the nineteenth century, an unprecedented number of Indigenous people - especially Haudenosaunee, Anishinaabeg, and Cree - travelled to Britain and other parts of the world. Who were these transatlantic travellers, where were they going, and what were they hoping to find?

Travellers through Empire unearths the stories of Indigenous peoples including Mississauga Methodist missionary and Ojibwa chief Reverend Peter Jones, the Scots-Cherokee officer and interpreter John Norton, Catherine Sutton, a Mississauga woman who advocated for her people with Queen Victoria, E. Pauline Johnson, the Mohawk poet and performer, and many others. Cecilia Morgan retraces their voyages from Ontario and the northwest fur trade and details their efforts overseas, which included political negotiations with the Crown, raising funds for missionary work, receiving an education, giving readings and performances, and teaching international audiences about Indigenous cultures. As they travelled, these remarkable individuals forged new families and friendships and left behind newspaper interviews, travelogues, letters, and diaries that provide insights into their cross-cultural encounters.

Chronicling the emotional ties, contexts, and desires for agency, resistance, and negotiation that determined their diverse experiences, Travellers through Empire provides surprising vantage points on First Nations travels and representations in the heart of the British Empire.

“Exceptionally well researched and very fluently written, Travellers through Empire will be an important contribution to the growing literature on Indigenous travellers outside the bounds of their traditional territories.” Coll Thrush, University of British Columbia and author of Indigenous London: Native Travellers at the Heart of Empire“Prolific and respected historian Morgan makes an important contribution to scholarship on the mobility of Indigenous peoples in the 19th century. Although they were far from the first North American Indigenous peoples to travel overseas, Morgan frames their stories within the context of Indigenous reactions to 19th-century imperial expansion, the actions of settler governments encroaching on Indigenous territories, and settler efforts to restrict Indigenous mobility, confining people geographically, politically, culturally, and socially. Required reading for 19th-century Canadian and Indigenous history. Highly recommended.” Choice“An excellent addition to the growing body of literature on Indigenous mobility.” Historical Studies in Education / Revue d'histoire de l'éducation"Morgan encourages historians to find similar stories in the experiences of Indigenous peoples from across North America. These men, women, and children brought Indigenous culture to the heart of the empire, shaped and were shaped by their relations with imperial subjects, and carried these experiences with them when and if they returned. There are more stories to tell, and, as Morgan's excellent work illustrates, they enrich our understanding of a shared past and fraught present." The Canadian Journal of Native Studies

Cecilia Morgan is professor of history at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto.